


flock together

by carolinaa



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Coming Out, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Friendship, Gay People Can Sense Other Gay People Like With Magic Or Some Shit, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Post-Canon, Underage Drinking, like just an absolutely minimal amount of spoilers, slightest s3 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 00:56:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19842178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinaa/pseuds/carolinaa
Summary: Robin finds herself the resident secret-keeper for a bunch of children. And, even better, she discovers she's been yanked into a group of people who have more in common with her than she'd thought.





	flock together

**Author's Note:**

> just a short lil thing. i love robin so i had to write something you know

“What’s up, little man?” Robin asks, an attempt to sound nonchalant. 

Due to the fact that she’s suddenly claustrophobic as hell (maybe because of that time she got trapped underground and interrogated and drugged with almost no hope of escape), she’s had to take a break from the sleepover party that’s happening at Steve’s. Steve had been surprised that she’d even accepted his invitation to hang out with an assortment of children, voluntarily, but she’d been having fun up until the room started getting a bit too stuffy for her tastes.

Nobody had given her a second glance when she’d ditched for a few minutes, though. Which she should have expected, because everyone in the group has some things that they’re super weird about. Like how Steve has to keep a light on in the hallway in case it starts flickering, and how El starts panicking if someone touches her neck in any capacity, and how Will is constantly circling around to the thermostat to make sure the room is warm enough, and how Max keeps her back to a corner or a wall so nobody can sneak up on her. They all have little things like that, and nobody is keen to dwell on them, but Robin is pretty sure that a group of kids like this shouldn’t have so much combined trauma. 

Anyway, right now Robin is Not-Hiding in Steve’s room next to the open window with a book she found, and Will is standing in the doorway. 

Will glances over his shoulder, like he’s worried someone followed him, and Robin sets her book down. Will’s a nervous kid, but not usually without reason. 

“Can I ask you about something?” Will isn’t making eye contact. 

“Yes,” she says slowly, now _also_ nervous.

“Uh,” Will says. He falls silent.

“Not a question for Steve?” she asks, trying to joke, but Will looks guilty, and she feels bad.

“I don’t--” he tries. “I mean, he _might_ be able to answer it, like I can’t be _sure_ , but I think you might be...more qualified?”

Robin blinks, trying to think of an area in which a fifteen-year-old boy would be more interested in _her_ input than _Steve’s_. “Okay?”

Will nods. 

She watches him as he seemingly works through a hundred different sentences, before he settles on, “If I--had a secret, a big one, and it could make other people not... _like_ me, does that mean I’m a bad person for not telling them? Like, for tricking them into being friends with me?” 

Robin says, “Wowzers.”

Will crumples, and says, “Sorry,” but Robin pushes herself upright and says, “No, no no, sorry, I just meant--that’s a big question.”

“Yeah,” Will says. _Duh_ , is what he means. 

The thing is, Robin thinks she knows exactly what this is about. And Will’s tense posture, like he could bolt at any sign of danger, is probably a learned survival instinct. It’s one that _she_ has, after all. 

She says, gently, “Does anyone know? Your secret, I mean. Have you told anybody?”

Will shakes his head. He looks as if he’s on the verge of tears. “I can’t. I can’t tell them. But I _should_ , right? I think Mike might know, but we haven’t talked about it, so maybe he just wants to pretend he doesn’t? Like, I don’t think he would want to be my friend if I brought it up--?”

“Hey,” Robin says, before Will freaks himself out any further. He’s probably been beating himself up about this for months. Years, if he realized early enough. She tries to refocus him on his original question. “You’re not a bad person, and it’s not like you’re ‘tricking’ anybody into doing anything they don’t want to do.”

Will scrubs at his eye with the back of his hand, irritated. “You don’t know that.”

“Dude,” she says. “I thought your friends did that whole first adventure because they wanted to save you so badly.”

Will flushes and looks down at his feet. “If they knew, though, they wouldn’t care so much,” he says. He sounds very convinced.

Robin frowns. She decides to change tactics, and goes with the bombshell. She thinks a hail Mary and then goes for it. “You know I like girls, right?”

Will’s eyes widen, and he looks up at her sharply. His entire posture changes, like he’s poised to run.

“And I don’t tell _anybody_ about that,” she says, pressing into his head that _secrets are fine_ , “because I’m not ready. That doesn’t mean I’m being a bad friend. Does it?”

“No,” Will says, leaping to reassure her, because he’s a sweet kid. 

“Right, so,” she says, and gives him a Look. “ _Whatever_ your secret is, be easier on yourself.”

Will looks frustrated at how she’s twisted his kind nature against him, but he also seems less overtly distraught, so she takes it as a victory. 

“And I’m a great secret-keeper,” she says. “You’re only the second one I’ve told about that.”

“Who’s the first?” Will asks.

“Steve,” Robin says. “He’s _also_ a great secret-keeper,” she adds, so Will knows there’s at least one other person he can tell. 

She might be laying it on a bit thick, but it appears to be working anyway.

Will sniffles a little bit, and gives her a watery smile. He checks over his shoulder again, and then says in the smallest voice imaginable, “Um. I _don’t_ like girls.”

Robin says, in the kindest tone she can, “Hell yeah.”

“You can’t tell anyone,” he insists. 

They both know what happens to people who tell people.

Robin nods. “My lips are sealed.”

Will smiles, relieved, and wipes his face in the crook of his elbow. “Sorry for bothering you.” 

He sniffs. It’s a very damp noise, like he’s trying not to cry in front of her, and suddenly Robin is doing her sympathy-tearing up thing that she does. The two of them blink at each other until Will says, “I’m gonna…go.”

“Sure,” Robin says. She gives him a thumbs-up.

In return, Will darts forward and gives Robin a very tight hug. He’s honestly tiny. Weird how much trauma can fit into one small boy.

And then he’s gone out of the room, hurrying back down the hallway to rejoin the party. Robin picks her book back up, because she doesn’t know what else to do.

“It’s like, _every single girl_ is pretty, and Lucas is the only boy that’s sort of okay to look at,” Max is saying, gesturing vaguely. She’s been recounting the story of her and Lucas’s breakup for a while now, and this isn’t even the most incriminating thing she’s said. Robin is driving Max home and losing her entire mind, silently, in the driver’s seat. “It’s so shitty! Boys have it so easy.”

Robin opens and shuts her mouth a few times, cycling through various responses to that, before simply refocusing on the road and saying, “Hmm,” in an encouraging sort of way.

Max says, “I wish I could just date girls for a change.”

Her tone has changed, now. It’s a cautious sound, still thinly veiled as a joke, but Robin takes it for what it is--a confession. Maybe Max isn’t _entirely_ in denial.

Robin shoots her a brief smile, and says, casual as possible, “I mean, if it would make you happy.”

In her peripheral vision, Robin can see Max glance at her, fear lining her face. Robin’s heard bits and pieces about Max’s home life, and it’s clear through subtext that Max’s father has done worse things than just voting for Reagan. Max is right to be worried, and Robin’s not sure how to express that Max is being _super brave_ right now without sounding like a dweeby stepdad. 

“I’m saying, live your life,” Robin says. “And boys suck.”

Max snorts, but she’s more subdued now. Maybe thoughtful? Or maybe Robin just creeped her out. “Yeah, totally. Thanks.” 

They drive in quiet for a few blocks, until Robin slows to a stop in front of Max’s house. The windows are all dark, and Max gives a not-so-subtle sigh before unlocking and opening the door.

“Hey,” Robin says, as Max is getting out. “Be safe, okay?”

Max blinks, and her smile is slight enough that it’s hard to see in the dim streetlights. “Okay. Thanks,” Max says again. She shifts a little bit, and then says, as if to let Robin know that they understand each other, “You too.” 

Robin salutes. Max runs up the steps of her house to let herself in.

“I need to tell you something,” Steve blurts. He looks nauseous. No. Scared? Robin can’t tell if he’s acting. She passed tipsy an hour ago.

“If this is love confession 2.0, I’m warning you, you’re about to get love rejection 2.0,” Robin tells him. 

Steve’s face closes off. It’s subtle, but Robin feels like she’s misread the situation a little bit. 

A moment later, he laughs. She has the distinct impression that it’s fake. 

“Yeah, actually. Thanks for warning me.” Steve hiccups. “ _Ugh_ , I’m going to get some water. My mouth tastes like rat.”

“No, dude, come on.” Robin slaps at his arm ineffectively, trying to get him to stay put. “That was a dick move of me. Sorry. What were you going to say?”

Steve hiccups again. He’s been pounding back drinks for a while, even faster than her, like he has something he’s trying to keep himself from saying, or feeling, or thinking about (she should probably step in, and she should probably pull the can out of his hands before he starts puking). The look on his face is familiar, somehow. 

He takes a breath, and averts his eyes, and says, “Um, Will said he told you about something. He just told me too, last night. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“Yes,” Robin says, after a moment’s pause. Will tells her a _lot_ of things, now that he’s determined that she’s trustworthy, and she’s had to sift through the stack to remember the most important thing.

Steve hems and haws a little bit more, setting his beer down and then picking it up and then fixing his hair and then--he forces his hands still again and glances back at her, out of the corner of his eye.

“Is there a problem?” Robin asks, ready to ditch Steve to go hang out with Will Byers. 

“No!” Steve exclaims, gesturing so violently his beer sloshes onto his hand. “ _Not_ a problem. I’m happy for him, you know? That he has a family that cares. And that it won’t matter to his friends or his mom if he tells them, because they love him. We love him.”

“Alright,” Robin says slowly. “Yeah, he’s really lucky. Joyce is the coolest.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Best mom award.”

“More like hottest mom award,” Robin says, and Steve mimes nausea and elbows her in the side, groaning about how that’s _gross_.

They eventually fall into quiet again, which is when Steve says, “I’m just happy for him,” with the air of someone who is incredibly miserable. He looks to her again, with that sideways look, like he’s anxious. 

Robin, suddenly, places what the look on his face is. She’s seen it on two children (friends) now, and while it isn’t uncommon for Steve to be anxious, this particular look is different. Distinct. 

“Oh,” she says, realizing a _lot_ of things. “Steve--”

“I’m just gonna tell you, and you have to just--be cool about it, okay?” Steve asks, talking over her. “I, uh, I think--I like girls _and_ boys and--”

“Steve,” Robin says, and smiles reassuringly, because he’s freaking out. “Hey. Get your shit together. It’s okay.”

Steve lets out a long breath, a shaky one. His eyes are suspiciously shiny.

“Are you telling me because last week I thought it was a joke when you said River Phoenix is hot?”

“No,” Steve snaps, defensive, and then both of them start giggling. Steve not-so-sneakily wipes tears off of his cheeks, looking miles more relaxed. “I’m never going to tell anybody else,” he says to her matter-of-factly. “So count yourself lucky. I just wanted to know what it would be like for someone else to know.”

Robin frowns. She’s hoping that someday, she’ll be able to tell people casually, in small talk, or that she can walk up to girls instead of crying alone in a bathroom at band parties like she did in high school. Like, it has to get _better_ , but it appears that Steve has already convinced himself of the opposite. But maybe that’s a discussion for another time. Both of them are pretty drunk, and a little sleepy, and it’s getting late.

“Well, I’m honored,” she says. Steve beams.

**Author's Note:**

> s3 was wild. also while i'm here @ all you nasties who are shipping robin and steve... you will taste my sword. @ the rest of you: i love you and thank you for reading!


End file.
